tional security information received by the committee classified secret or higher. Such procedures shall, however, insure access to this information by any member of the committee or any other member of the House of Representatives who has requested the opportunity to review such material. Such security procedures as are established by the Chairman may be modified or waived in any or all particulars by a majority vote of the full Committee on Armed Services, a quorum being present."

Pursuant to Rule No. 10, cited above, there is attached the self-explanatory rules prescribed by the Chairman for access by Members of the House of Representatives to classified information in the Committee files.

SUMMARY OF BASIC DOCUMENT (Source, rubject for short title if cubject classified), date, number of copies, pages. List and identity inclosure separately)

DATE RECEIVED

Apr. 22, 1974

Subcommittee on Intelligence
Briefing by CIA

I have read the Rules of the Committee on Armed Services relative to access by
Members of the House of Representatives to classified information in the
Comittee files, and I agree to honor these rules.

Mr. HARRINGTON. I have a total facsimile.

Mr. NEDZI. Mr. Harrington, could you tell us what you did with respect to this information that was secured

54-040-75-2

Mr. HÉBERT. May I interrupt?

Mr. NEDZI. Mr. Hébert.

Mr. HÉBERT. It is usual when the committee has conducted hearings to place all witnesses under oath, and I suggest you have Mr. Harrington, if he is willing, take the oath.

Mr. HARRINGTON. Certainly.

Mr. NEDZI. Any objection?

Mr. HARRINGTON. No. I think it is a procedure that might be applied more often to executive branch members, too. But I am glad to. Mr. NEDZI. Will you raise your right hand.

[Witness sworn.]

TESTIMONY OF HON. MICHAEL HARRINGTON, REPRESENTATIVE FROM MASSACHUSETTS

Mr. NEDZI. As I stated earlier, could you tell us how you handled the information or what you did with the information which was secured as a result of examining the transcript of April 22?

Mr. HARRINGTON. Sure. At what point, so that I don't really occupy too much of your time, Mr. Chairman, would you like me to try to begin? I can give you any kind of background you would like or anything useful for the proper setting.

Mr. NEDZI. Any disclosure of that information to any individuals. Mr. HARRINGTON. All right. Why don't we take it from about the point you and I began in April and move quickly into June, which appears to be the subject of your interest, and I will make a statement and answer any questions you want to try to have answered that aren't part of what I originally included in my statement.

As you know, I verbally expressed to you, I would say, now attempting to place it in a general time frame, sometime in the latter part of March my dissatisfaction with the nature of hearings that were being conducted before our own committee, the subcommittee specifically. Inter-American Affairs Subcommittee, particularly on the origins of our policy toward the Allende government from about 1970 to the present, and the effective or the lack of effective ability that I had had to get the chairman of the subcommittee to have what I considered to be hearings into the origin of that policy.

I told you I think at the same time that in appearing before our committee, in general declining because of the oversight function, in his own words, being investigated with the Armed Services Committee, Mr. Colby indicated that he would prefer to be responsive to a relevant House committee.

Mr. NEDZI. Mr. Hébert.

Mr. HÉBERT. Mr. Harrington, would you identify the chairman of the subcommittee.

Mr. HARRINGTON. I am sorry.

Mr HEBERT. You said it was the chairman.

Mr. HARRINGTON. Dante Fascell. That has been part of the record in correspondence, chairman of the Inter-American Affairs Subcommittee of the House of Representatives, the full committee being the Foreign Affairs Committee.

And indicated to you my interest in at least pursuing what had been said in repeated fashion in the preceding fall by the Director of the

CIA and largely prompted by a variety of expectations on my part that the committee would engage in substantive hearings being dashed or at least not fulfiilled up to that point.

I think at the time you asked if I would make a request to you summarizing that in some fashion, which I did, and I don't have that packet of correspondence, but I would say it is the first part of April of this last year, and the date could perhaps be made a part of the record if it is useful for the record.

I don't think until some time after the hearing was actually held that you and I had any further communication except to have you tell me that you had had the hearing and were in the process of attempting to get approval or permission from the chairman to have me get access to the material, and we had conversations of this kind, I would say, through the latter part of May and I think about at that time that the procurement bill came to the floor and a discussion was finally held, I think maybe involving Mr. Slatinshek, after talking with yourself, who had indicated that he had talked with the Director of the CIA and you had already, Mr. Chairman, talked with the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Hébert, and that it would be appropriate at that time for me to come to the committee and to obtain access to the material that had been the subject of my request in the Colby testimony. I believe I did that the following Monday or Tuesday, the first week of June, and went back to the committee a second time, the only other time, a week later, and each time observing the procedures, which have been in a more orderly fashion than I can recount outlined by Mr. Slatinshek, as to how that material was to be handled and read it I think in the presence in general of one or more of the employees of the Armed Services Committee.

Frankly, and I can digress a minute so that I can put at least my philosophy in perspective, and I am sure you people have no trouble arriving at without my bothering to be fulsome in detail, I didn't expect much by way of substance to come from the session that you had and it was more by way of looking for avenues to pursue what I thought was a very serious subject, particularly in light of testimony given-I don't know whether under oath, Mr. Hébert, or not-by a variety of executive branch witnesses to other congressional committees on the question of our involvement in internal political affairs during the Allende period in Chile, and to say that I was startled by the substance would probably understate to a great degree.

I think Mr. Slatinshek was there the first time and we had some brief comment which would tend to characterize what I suggest to you this morning was my reaction.

Mr. SLATINSHEK. May I interject at this point?

I observed that this was the usual candor with which the committee received testimony from Mr. Colby. He was always forthright and complete in his testimony and I mentioned that this was the manner in which we had operated.

Mr. HARRINGTON. You have no disgagreement with me on that score. I found it, at least to the degree that it was candid, direct, almost to a degree a monologue, reciting not only the events as far as our involvement on the part of various executive branch agencies in the Allende period, but also with almost a sense of inferred pride useful as an

insight into both the main witness, Mr. Colby, but also an insight into the method of operation that the CIA employed in this instance, and I can infer from my memory employed in the conduct of covert or clandestine type operations.

I found the information troublesome. I think almost the afternoon to the day of the second reading of the testimony an Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Shlaudeman, and I am not helpful to the spelling, came before our subcommittee.

Congressman Fraser had arrived at, from independent sources, and I certainly have no reason to not believe him since I had no conversation with him prior to the time of that hearing, general information of a similar nature. And as I think the afternoon session of about June 12, would reflect, both Congressman Fraser and I asked some pointed but still reasonably guarded questions of the Assistant Secretary who, by the way, Mr. Chairman, I asked to be put under oath and then withdrew because of the obvious impact it had on both him, and I might say, the committee membership that was there that afternoon. Mr. BOB WILSON. Was this in executive session?

Mr. HARRINGTON. No, it was not; open session. I think it was Tuesday afternoon in June.

At that point I had determined, so that you don't have any ambiguity about my state of mind, that that information, particularly as it contrasted with what was being stated by a variety of executive branch spokesmen on a regular basis, had to become known and had to become understood by both the Congress and hopefully the country, and I don't really want to mince or choose language which is in any way going to suggest that there was any ambiguity of my state of mind at that point in time.

I would prefer, and I hope that my rather brief service on the Armed Services Committee would even momentarily afford the charity of the observation being joined in, to have seen that accomplished by using legitimate methods to do so.

Consequently, I had conversations with Congressman Fascell, briefly informing him of the specifics of what I had read.

Mr. NEDZI. What was his response?

Mr. HARRINGTON. An almost audible sigh and a philosophic shrug of a sense of almost not wanting to have been made part of the scope of knowledge and what I would interpret as-I do this subjectivelyan expression of disinclination on his part to involve himself, at least as to the sources and the type of information that I provided him. Mr. BRAY. Did you inform Mr. Fascell of the manner and statement which you had made as to secrecy when you received that information? Mr. HARRINGTON. I was going to continue, Mr. Bray, but I indicated to Mr. Fascell, as I had to others, the nature of the testimony, to whom it had been given, and the conditions under which I had read it. I didn't get into the detail that Mr. Slatinshek had characterized in his recital of the rules this morning. I infer in general they are generally familiar with the procedures which would operate as to information which is classified, secret or whatever.

Mr. BRAY. Did you not specifically tell Mr. Fascell the instructions that were given you and the statement which you signed?

Mr. HARRINGTON. If you are talking about that I told Mr. Fascell

that I signed a cover sheet on the testimony and what my memory was of the language of it, no, I didn't, but I made it equally clear to him appproximately when and where and under what conditions and the general tenor of the information and its categorization by the executive branch, so that I really don't think that there was anything that was an effort to gloss over the nature of the sources of my information. Mr. BRAY. I believe you stated in the negative, that you did not tell him specifically that you signed, for instance-I will read it.

Mr. HARRINGTON. I will accept it as read. I know what I signed. Mr. BRAY. I mean, did you tell Mr. Fascell what you signed before you got access to this information which you gave to him? Mr. NEDZI. The gentleman said he didn't.

Mr. HARRINGTON. I specifically did not in the sense of saying that I signed a sheet that was a cover sheet to 48 pages of Director of CIA testimony that took place in April.

I went up to Dante Fascell, talking to him in the committee, and said, "I have seen the Colby testimony and this is what it says in general, and where I have seen it."

Mr. BRAY. I just wanted to clarify this. Here you signed on June 4, 1974 and June 12, 1974 this statement:

"I have read the rules of the Committee on Armed Services relative to access by Members of the House of Representatives to classified information in the committee files, and I agree to honor those rules." You didn't specifically tell him that you had signed that to get the information which you used?

Mr. HARRINGTON. I will try to be responsive again.

No, I specifically didn't.

Mr. ARENDS. Did you by chance use the phrase that we so often use around this place, did you say to Dante Fascell, "This is a matter off the record."

Mr. HARRINGTON. No.

Mr. ARENDS. Did you use that phrase?

Mr. HARRINGTON. NO.

Mr. ARENDS. You felt then at that moment you had complete freedom to tell anything you want to tell.

Mr. HARRINGTON. To another Member of the Congress? Sure. I assume that that is what he is here for, and I assume also that I told him, in his knowing better than I, Mr. Arends, exactly what the conditions are that the CIA testifies, that I didn't have to spell out to somebody who has eight or nine terms basically what I assume to be superior knowledge to mine of those procedures.

I don't want to verbally fence with you, Mr. Bray. I did not want to recite in any further detail.

Mr. BRAY. Thank you for answering the question.

Mr. HÉBERT. In other words, I think your expression now was that you had this information, that you felt free to tell any Member of Congress that information?

Mr. HARRINGTON. Certainly.

Mr. HÉBERT. That Member of Congress is free to tell it to anybody else if he wants to because he had not signed that agreement and had not been privileged to look at this testimony.

Mr. HARRINGTON. That wasn't the intent of mind, Mr. Chairman, so